Reeflex G-Series iPhone Lens Review

As iPhones have developed, so has the range of built-in lens options that are now baked into the devices. While these built-in lenses offer easy access, convenience, and creative options, they can be somewhat limited due to some notable distortions that they give. For this reason, I have been using third-party add-on lenses for the past few years, as the quality I get from add-on lenses is much better than those I get from the built-in alternatives. I have found that many-a-photo has been ruined by an elongated person or stretched out object on the edge of a photo.

In recent years, the two lens options I have settled on are those provided by Moment and Reeflex. That is until recently when I started using Reeflex’s new G-Series range of lenses. Today, I’d like to walk you through my experiences using the G-Series lenses.

First Impressions

The first thing I noticed about the lenses was their size. Compared to other add-on iPhone lenses, they are seriously chunky, especially the wide-angle and telephoto lenses. This is a good indication that, in practice, the image quality would most likely be much better, and the potential for any vignetting or image distortion would be reduced.

The build quality of the G-Series is excellent. The lenses are housed in a metal, aluminium casing. Each lens has a screw thread fitting on the base, which allows the lenses to be firmly screwed into the Reeflex phone case. This ensures a solid and precise fit for the lens in exactly the right place.

The lenses also have a magnetic surround which allows the lens cap and a filter adapter to be easily attached.

The G-Series range includes six lenses: a 110-degree wide-angle lens, a 2x telephoto lens, two macro lenses (one 10x long-range macro and one 10x macro), a 220-degree fisheye lens, and a 1.33x anamorphic lens for shooting cinematic video.

The Reeflex Case

The Reeflex case offered a snug fit around my iPhone. The case had a tough rubber bumper surround, which has a small lip to help keep the screen’s glass from touching flat surfaces when placed face down. A raised mount surrounded the iPhone lenses into which the lenses screw into.

Reeflex offers three types of cases: a carbon case (the one I have), a wood case with a lovely wooden effect back, and a leather MagSafe case that allows you to pair the case with any MagSafe system.

Overall, the case is well-made and feels solid and robust. I have the carbon case but will not likely change to the wood case as I like the customized look of it.

The G-Series Lens Range

For this deep dive into the new G-Series range, I will be looking at the wide-angle, telephoto and the macro lenses.

110 Degree Wide Angle Lens

The wide-angle lens provides a 110-degree field of view. You’ll first notice how big and chunky it is. Dimensions wise it is 5cm in diameter and 3.5cm in height and uses good-quality glass set into an aluminum casing. The lens comes with a magnetic lens cap that snaps to the outer casing, a soft pouch for storage, and lens cloth, all of which help to add to the quality feel of the product.

All G-Series lenses use a screw fitting that enables a perfect fit into the lens mount on the phone case. In the past, I have found screw-fitting attachments to be fiddly to position as they have a tendency to cross-thread. But so far, I haven’t had any issues with the G-Series; the lenses fall into place quite easily, and once in position, they fit snugly onto the phone case.

I have been using Reeflex’s Pro range of lenses for a couple of years. During this time, the wide-angle lens tended to produce some blurry vignetting towards the edges of photos, so I was eager to see how the G-Series performed in this regard.

I’m pleased to say that this vignetting effect is no longer present with the new G-Series. The lens gives a sharp focus across the whole image. It also lacks any sort of perspective distortion that tends to appear on the edges of photo using the iPhone built-in ultra-wide angle lens. I have often found that these types of distortions have ruined many-a-photo.

I have been very impressed with the new wide-angle lens. I found it to be a solid piece of kit. It is well-made and gives crisp, sharp results in the photos taken with it.

2x Telephoto Lens

The 2x telephoto lens is about the size of the wide-angle lens but slightly deeper (5.5cm x 3.5cm). Again, the lens uses good quality glass that is set into an aluminium surround. Like the wide-angle, the telephoto lens comes with a magnetic metal lens cap and lens hood, both of which snap onto the surrounding casing.

Positioning the telephoto lens over the iPhone’s wide-angle lens (the lower of the 3 iPhone lenses) the lens gives you a 2x optical magnification. I found the quality of the photos taken using the telephoto to be excellent.

One thing I found was that if I placed the telephoto lens over the built-in telephoto lens of the iPhone and used a third-party app such as the Reeflex camera app, I could get a magnification of up to 6-10x optical zoom. At this magnification, there is some slight degradation in image quality, which is why Reeflex doesn’t actively market the lens as being compatible with the built-in telephoto. The lens is designed to work best with the main camera sensor. But, even so, this is an insane level of magnification for an iPhone and does give you the opportunity to get much closer to distant subjects if needed.

I found the photos taken with the telephoto to be of excellent quality. They had a natural depth of field with no distortions. The lens is a perfect choice for shooting everyday life, portraits, or longer-range street photography.

Macro Lenses

Over recent years, I have become interested in macro photography. I find it to be an excellent form of mindfulness as it helps me focus on the small details surrounding me instead of looking at the bigger picture.

Reeflex offers two lenses in its G-Series macro range: the 10x long-range macro and the 10x macro lens.

The long-range 10x macro doesn’t focus as closely as the standard 10x counterpart. The lens has a focal length of 75mm and gives a magnification of between about 5x-10x with a 62-degree field of view. Like all lenses in the range, it also comes with a lens pouch and lens cloth. I found the image quality to be excellent, and as you’d expect from a macro lens, it provided a lovely depth-of-field bokeh effect that gives pin-sharp detail in the focus area.

Meanwhile, the 10x macro lens lets you get closer to your subject than the long-range lens. The optimal shooting distance for this lens is between 15mm-25mm, which gives a magnification of about 5x-10x, which captures an incredible amount of detail. Again, the image quality was crisp with a very shallow depth of field, which means a steady hand (and burst mode) is highly recommended in order to capture the perfect shot.

Filters

A new addition to the G-Series range is a range of filters that include a polarizing CPL filter and six ND filters of varying densities. These filters offer the iPhone photographer more control over image exposure in bright light situations by enabling the use of wider apertures and slower shutter speeds. They are particularly useful in landscape photography for balancing exposure and achieving smooth water or sky effects as well as when shooting video.

To use the filters, you first need to attach an adapter to the lens. Thanks to the G-Series’ magnetic surround system, this is easy. The filters then magnetically snap onto the adapter ring, firmly holding them in place.

Final Thoughts

Overall, I really like the new G-Series range of lenses. I think Reeflex have done an excellent job of improving on their previous range of Pro series lenses. I’d probably go as far as saying that the G-Series has the edge over other iPhone lens options currently on the market.

The lenses are well-made and use high-quality glass and aluminium, which are essential components for a product like this. The use of a magnetic surround to attach the aluminium lens caps, adapters, and filters is a stroke of genius. Other accessories like the lens pouches and lens cloths add an extra touch to the overall feeling of quality that the products give. You really get a sense that Reeflex cares.

There is something for everyone in the G-Series range. For landscape photographers, the wide-angle lens has seen a big improvement in its image quality. For portrait photography or everyday situations where you need to get closer to your subject, but can’t zoom with your feet, then the telephoto lens will be the one for you. If macro photography is your thing, then both of the 10x macro lenses offer plenty of ways to be creative.

I’m particuarly impressed by the ability to magnetically attach filters onto the lenses as this now offers photographers a degree of pro level control over the images that they take.

Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to test out the fisheye and anamorphic lenses, but I have no doubt that the quality, build and creative potential of those products will be no less than the wide angle, telephoto and macro lens series.

If you are looking to extend your iPhone photography options, then I would highly recommend checking out Reeflex’s G-Series. Lens prices range from $129.99 to $169.999, with the phone cases ranging from $49.99 to $54.999.

Want to know more? Visit the Reeflex website at www.reeflexstore.com for more details about their ever-growing range of iPhone photography products.